Also Read: Part 1 - Roads in Bolivia, Russia + trek in China Part 2 - Roads in China, Thailand, Italy Part 3 - Roads in Nepal, Philippines Part 4 - Roads in Alps, Slovenia, Norway
Crazy Routes in Andes, Albania & New Zealand
Necessity may dictate that you choose the "road less traveled", but for goodness sake, leave weaker-nerved passengers behind. They might experience life-changing (and underwear-changing) circumstances that they will never forget, or forgive.
One of the Chinese military roads to "boost the morale of their troops" -
and here is how they navigate it:
Outside of military scares, our first pick among the seriously crooked roads today is
"Los Caracoles" Pass in Andes
Rodrigo L. van Lamoen tipped us about its existence and describes it in this way: "It's a place in the mountain pass "Los Libertadores" that goes trough the Andes between Chile and Argentina. It's called "Los Caracoles" and is a series of very hard switchbacks on a very steep road, with no barriers and ice and snow present most of the year. Add the cargo trucks and double-decker tourist buses... and you get the idea. I've done that a couple times, once in a double-decker even, and it's quite an experience."
However, this road is maintained pretty regularly and does not have as morbid an accident-record as the following:
Tirana to Elbasan Road in Albania
This is a hairy route, very high, badly maintained with high volume of heavy truck traffic - count on these Albanian drivers to be dare-devils, too. Whatever pictures we could get, look pretty serious: (click to enlarge)
The "Lord of the Rings" country contains the prettiest landscapes in the world and the hairiest roads to reach them. At least we got this impression after receiving a dozen tips from our readers to investigate and to cover some of this island's fearsome backroads. Here are a few examples:
Mount Hutt road (sent by Mick) -
Looks like a good Optimus Prime hangout:
It gets pretty interesting in foggy conditions (sheer drop less than a meter away) -
Katie Laurence writes to us: "This road is made from a very narrow cut in the middle of a sheer cliff face. The large tourist buses go along it, and it's so narrow that if two vehicles have to pass each other, one vehicle might have to reverse for anything up to 3 kilometres of winding narrow road to get to a place wide enough to pass. It is the SCARIEST road you could imagine..."
Among other cliff-side roads of New Zealand we have to mention the Paikakariki road on the North Island - rewarding with awesome coastal views, but demanding driver's full attention at the same time. Otherwise the careless stray glance toward a pretty landscape may become the last thing you'll gaze upon, period. (images courtesy David Wall)
The helicopter view reveals how spectacular the drive really is:
- Irimahuwheri Bay, Perpendicular Point (Paparoa National Park, West Coast, South Island) - State Highway Six at Ten Mile Creek, north of Greymouth, West Coast, South Island
Milford Road in Upper Hollyford Valley (Fiordland National Park, South Island) is something else again, but not as dangerous to drive, barring avalanches:
PS: Do a search for "caracol" in Google Images and you'll notice why the "Los Caracoles" Pass is called so xD (I'm spanish and laughed when I saw the name)
There are definitely stretches along the White Rim Road through Canyonlands NP in Utah that compete with these road. Maybe not in terms of treachery over the entire length, but it's quite a remarkable thing. Here are two photos I took for reference: Photo 1 and Photo 2. I've actually posted quite a few images recently from my trips to the White Rim Road.
Aaaah. Or how about the Irohazaka Road in Nikko (Japan)? Not only does it look like this, they've got all the hairpins numbered and named, with little signs with flowers on them. A quite harrowing experience, and I wasn't even doing the driving.
Wow, I've been at the Tirana - Elbasan path! It was very dangerous, and I'm one of those who just don't feel safe in a car. Some truck-drivers drove like crazy and we saw two accidents on the way!
Agreed, I've being using PS for a decade and I can't find any evidence that the last image was tampered with. The shadows look healthy, other than the fact the image was taken with a medium-grade digital camera - or is highly compressed. I question Byrn's claim...
One note about the Skipper's Canyon road: the tourist buses definitely DO NOT go on that road. I used to live nearby and have been on that road several times. It was put in during the gold rush in the 19th century and really has had little work done since then. The blue vehicles shown in the one picture are the biggest ones that go out there. With that said, I agree that it is an awesome and hair-raising road to be on!
Also in NZ, though not as dangerous as it once was, is the Rimutaka Road (or as the locals call it, Rima-puka Road) between Wellington and the Wairarapa valley. It's been widened lately but still has its share of bad accidents.
One more is the Cardrona Road between Wanaka and Queenstown, though this too has been redone (paved now) so it has lost a bit of its original "charm" ;-) . Still enough to make you hurl when making the final descent into Queenstown.
I remember driving on the AlCan Highway before it was paved. The road from Dawson Creek, BC to the border of Alaska was all gravel road. 1,300 miles of fun! haha! I wish I had some pictures of the hot springs and the herd of Dall sheep. It was the experience of a lifetime for me!
The Alps in Northern Italy are the scariest I've been over. No railings of course, but what really got me were the shrines at the hairpins in memory of the people who didn't make it.
i went on los caracoles the day before yesterday... it's pretty tame even including the crazy driving at that spot. other parts along the road are less interesting but more dangerous.
The Caracoles I consider it comparing to others a quite safe route, and I drive fast. It is not the best but is much away of being a high risk route. Accidents are very unsusual. The one is worst than others is the way to go up to other ski resorts like the way to Farellones/Valle Nevado. 36 kms (22.3 miles) of curves through a 2 way traffic very narrow road. http://www.caleuche.com/Chile/IMAGENES/MONTANAS/CaminoFarallones.jpg
we drove down the Remarkables in heavy snowfall and were hugging the mountain so tightly that we crashed into a ditch. It's a terrifying road with sheer drops - that photo shows the safe part at the bottom as far as i can tell.
My heart skipped numerous beats driving up and down that mountain.
The last photo from Part 5 is from Turkey. The truck is from a city called Van, one of the easternmost city in Turkey and is just south of Mount Ararat and west of Armenia. And no, that photo is not photoshopped. :) Turkish villagers are known to do some stupid stuff once in a while..
The picture of the woman with a gun in her mouth was used in 1998 (in sepia) on the cover of the Beautiful South album "Welcome to the Beautiful South". The cover was changed for some markets, for obvious reasons, so it may not have been seen everywhere.
Huh. That picture of the Russian ship in trees is interesting. The Russians have a lot of ships on dry land around the Aral sea because they've diverted so much of the water for irrigating crops that they've ended up beaching boats in the middle of what looks like desert (well I suppose technically it is desert). But the trees are interesting, since it seems that if there wasn't water for the lake there wouldn't be water for the trees. I guess it could be a tsunami.
Of course in a likelihood it's probably just an old boat that was decommissioned and then moved out into the woods to serve as a party member's dacha.
The large cargo ship lying almost on its side is the Cougar Ace. A great article about its rescue can be found at Cargo Law.
The 47-foot motor lifeboats are self-righting under all conditions--they can be flipped completely upside down and they will right themselves quickly. While on a tour of the US Naval Academy in 1992, I saw a video of an actual test in which a lifeboat was flipped over and righted itself--maybe you can find this video around the Web somewhere.
lol... "no one could take a picture of a tsunami because no one survived" uummmmmmm... what about the 2005 tsunami- hundreds of thousands dead, millions of videos and pictures taken-?
There's a great write-up in Wired this month about saving the "Cougar Ace" boat that you have pictured under "Some ships fare worse than others:" (the one on its side)...
Uh, I live in Nova Scotia and have several friends in the Canadian Coast Guard. They don't do anything like what the US Coasties go through in training in Morro Bay, California
What a fantastic story, It amazes me how much power the ocean has. Some of the pictures you have posted are amazing.
I know that it isnt on the same scale as the pictures you have posted but I once got caught going across Moreton Bay in Queensland (Australia) we had 3 meter swells in the bay and we had to try and make it back from Moreton Island to Brisbane. If you are interested here is a picture from the trip. http://photos.birdfamily.id.au/?p=48
Got caught once in the Atlantic in December, north of 50, and got hammered by a massive winter storm. The scary thing is that waves never appear as big in photos...usually about 50% bigger in real life.
There is a famous photograph taken in the 50's of storm swell breaking on the headland north of Faial in the Azores. The waves / swells are in excess of 10 meters. The photo was taken as one of the swells crashed into the headland - the spray makes a perfect outline of a bearded man (Neptune) with amazing detail.
The Heinrich Behrmann (out of Bremen, Germany)beached herself near Ensenada, BCN, Mexico a few years back due to navigational errors. - She was unloaded by helicopters, a ditch was dug around and under her and she was successfully refloated by several tugs after about 3 months' hard work.
re: the basketball picture -- I'm guessing there used to be a basketball court there, with the floor mounted on those little brick pillars. But, it was abandoned and the floor scavenged by the locals, so all you've got left are the pillars.
The dragon is a fake, no surprise there, but it was created in the 1890s! http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/28/1075088090949.html?from=top5&oneclick=true
When I lived in Tucson Az I worked with a guy who's legal name was Obi Wan Kenobi. He was an actor and he said he changed his name to something people would remember. I have a Christmas card that he gave me that he signed as Obi Wan Kenobi.
That lady with the long black hair seated by the huge stone is Cher. I think that's the cover art of her album Heart of Stone, which was released in the early 90s. If I'm not mistaken, that album is where the single "Turn Back Time" is from.
It is Heart of Stone, and interestingly enough, that album cover was recalled because it was thought to be too morbid. That's the one I have, though, and I've never seen what they replaced it with.
the two paintings (flowers and leaves forming a female face, birds forming a female face) come from the artist Octavio Ocampo. Great work! Keep it up! ;)
omg, i cant beleive it! the one where u have 2 find the F's..first i counted 3, then i read the answer..i counted again, found 4, and the 4th time, i saw 6, haha!!
I think that second painting credited to Jos de Mey is actually by Rene Magritte. He frequently used the juxtaposition of night and day in his landscapes, and the birdcage fellow appears in many of his paintings.
That "asteroid" is in fact a meteor. :) Asteroids are large bodies smaller than a planet, located typically in the asteroid belt, meteoroids – smaller bodies, but still in space. Once they enter the atmosphere, they produce a ball of fire and this is called a "meteor".
The meteor photo has been found to be the reflection of the sun off ice particles left by a airliner's engines. Here's another photo from about 10 kilometers away http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=031013_fireball_heywood_02,0.jpg Still looks spectacular though!
The multi-coloured Beetles ("afterlife") were sold as such from the Mexican production line. They took 4 different-colour beetles and a small team just took the various parts off and assembled them on the other bodies just as they felt inspired that day. They then were sold as "clown"-version.
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18 Comments:
What about the road from Raikot Bridge to Fairy Meadows in Northern Areas, Pakistan.
Definitely the most scariest road I ever drove on:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=fairy%20meadows%20raikot%20bridge&w=all
Wao! I would not ever drive there.
PS: Do a search for "caracol" in Google Images and you'll notice why the "Los Caracoles" Pass is called so xD (I'm spanish and laughed when I saw the name)
I've been on Caracoles 4 times- it is crazy scary! (and btw a caracol is a snail, in Spanish. Hence the name.)
There are definitely stretches along the White Rim Road through Canyonlands NP in Utah that compete with these road. Maybe not in terms of treachery over the entire length, but it's quite a remarkable thing. Here are two photos I took for reference: Photo 1 and Photo 2. I've actually posted quite a few images recently from my trips to the White Rim Road.
Aaaah. Or how about the Irohazaka Road in Nikko (Japan)? Not only does it look like this, they've got all the hairpins numbered and named, with little signs with flowers on them. A quite harrowing experience, and I wasn't even doing the driving.
Wow, I've been at the Tirana - Elbasan path! It was very dangerous, and I'm one of those who just don't feel safe in a car. Some truck-drivers drove like crazy and we saw two accidents on the way!
The last photo is shopped. There's not enough shadow on the left-hand railing.
I don't see Byrn's comment on the shadow. I do a lot of PS and can't find your reference.
Agreed, I've being using PS for a decade and I can't find any evidence that the last image was tampered with. The shadows look healthy, other than the fact the image was taken with a medium-grade digital camera - or is highly compressed. I question Byrn's claim...
One note about the Skipper's Canyon road: the tourist buses definitely DO NOT go on that road. I used to live nearby and have been on that road several times. It was put in during the gold rush in the 19th century and really has had little work done since then. The blue vehicles shown in the one picture are the biggest ones that go out there. With that said, I agree that it is an awesome and hair-raising road to be on!
Also in NZ, though not as dangerous as it once was, is the Rimutaka Road (or as the locals call it, Rima-puka Road) between Wellington and the Wairarapa valley. It's been widened lately but still has its share of bad accidents.
One more is the Cardrona Road between Wanaka and Queenstown, though this too has been redone (paved now) so it has lost a bit of its original "charm" ;-) . Still enough to make you hurl when making the final descent into Queenstown.
I remember driving on the AlCan Highway before it was paved. The road from Dawson Creek, BC to the border of Alaska was all gravel road. 1,300 miles of fun! haha!
I wish I had some pictures of the hot springs and the herd of Dall sheep. It was the experience of a lifetime for me!
The Alps in Northern Italy are the scariest I've been over. No railings of course, but what really got me were the shrines at the hairpins in memory of the people who didn't make it.
My two cents:
Main road, Pilon, Santiago de Cuba
http://shrani.si/f/a/pb/1yRyIqAg/kuba-143.jpg
i went on los caracoles the day before yesterday... it's pretty tame even including the crazy driving at that spot. other parts along the road are less interesting but more dangerous.
The Caracoles I consider it comparing to others a quite safe route, and I drive fast.
It is not the best but is much away of being a high risk route. Accidents are very unsusual.
The one is worst than others is the way to go up to other ski resorts like the way to Farellones/Valle Nevado. 36 kms (22.3 miles) of curves through a 2 way traffic very narrow road. http://www.caleuche.com/Chile/IMAGENES/MONTANAS/CaminoFarallones.jpg
I laughed at the one with huge sand hill over it.. hilarious.
While taking a roadtrip in Costa Rica I found HORRIBLE roads.. took us hours to go just a few miles. SHEESH..
check out some of our roadtrips here
with awesome pictures:
(we're photographers)
www.theDNAlife.com
we drove down the Remarkables in heavy snowfall and were hugging the mountain so tightly that we crashed into a ditch. It's a terrifying road with sheer drops - that photo shows the safe part at the bottom as far as i can tell.
My heart skipped numerous beats driving up and down that mountain.
The last photo from Part 5 is from Turkey. The truck is from a city called Van, one of the easternmost city in Turkey and is just south of Mount Ararat and west of Armenia. And no, that photo is not photoshopped. :) Turkish villagers are known to do some stupid stuff once in a while..
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